The giddiness of the opening ceremonies I remember watching as a kid. Atlanta, Sydney, Athens?, Somewhere in China?

Ok, so I trailed off after I was 10. I’m pretty sure about Greece in ’04 and the scary drum thing broke twitter in ’08. Oh! 2012 was London because of the Lisa Simpson logo. And, let’s not get started on the Winter Games game. I only remember Salt Lake City because:

AMERICA!!

The 2012 Election

Mormon ties in the family.

Oh! And the Russian ones that were on a temperate island in early spring because… Putin liked to vay-cay there? But, really we only remember that one because it gave us Gus Kentworthy who rescued dogs and was afraid to come out of the closet… because Russia!

His quick rise, and fall, and then acceptance as a problematic fave that gives me worse body image issues than the average afternoon spent on Grindr (or Tinder, or OK Cupid, or… you see where I’m going) was really something to behold over the course of 3 consecutive Halloween party posts.

I stayed up all night working last night because I’m a coder for a living who hates himself. Long enough to fall asleep to MSNBC: the political analysis machine (hour 2 of Morning Joe to be precise… another problematic fave… oh, Mika…). The far too few hours later when I woke up, I was greeted by a Sandra Bernhardt sound-alike pulling rapid-fire commentary duty for Badminton, Skeet Shooting, Riffle… targetry(?), and Competitive Walking* on MSNBC: ESPN 8.

Now, let’s go through the NBCUniversal networks one by one to see what we’re being robbed of on day-side programming (Only NBC and NBC Sports seem to be affected in prime time.)

I’ll give in, eventually, but I’m not ready to come out to my DVR just yet.

Bravo – I only watch original Bravo programming in marathons while recovering from hangovers. Women’s Speed-walking is no substitution.

E! – See above.

MSNBC – It’s really my go to cable news outlet. Andrea Mitchell is really all I’m there for and their Olympics coverage of the left-over sports begins where her show lived. CNN, you say? Bah! You try watching Don Lemon for more than 10 minutes.

CNBC – I have no idea if there are even any sports on her but there may or may not be lesss people yelling about money than usual.

USA – Again. Marathons, this time of Modern Family and NCIS, are replaced by tennis and… I’m actually mostly OK with this one. Venus Williams killed it in the one match I caught.

Chiller, Cloo, Esquire Network – IDK

SyFy – I mean… OK fine. I’m not sure if they have sports on this one but I’ll assume that someone somewhere is upset about missing a repeat of a Sharknado movie. (PS Remember when SyFy was good and had Battlestar Galactica on it?)

I could solve all of this by just DVRing junk TV instead of relying on day-side marathons. But that’s like me trying to hide Britney Spears from my iPod in High School. I’ll give in, eventually, but I’m not ready to come out to my DVR just yet.